


The 107th Summer

by StudioCapsicum



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, overenthusiastic use of metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 16:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14918766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StudioCapsicum/pseuds/StudioCapsicum
Summary: There's a certain intimacy developed with the sun as it watches you grow up. It soothes you, burns you and encourages you. But sometimes it has to apologise to you.





	The 107th Summer

Phil had lived more summers in his life than he could count.

 

Across both lives, there were the endless summers of his childhood, filled with trips to the beach, ice-cream dripping over his fingers, broad grins and laughter that lasted months on end.

 

Summer jobs as a teenager, helping his mother make ends meet. Visiting his father's grave and hoping his dad would’ve been proud. There were first dates, shy grins, trips to museums and weeks spent indoors, consuming comics like they were air.

 

As soon as he was recruited, summers became different. They weren’t times of respite, they were long hours in the field, hard decisions that he shouldered the responsibility for. Summers became paperwork with hints of sunlight flickering through the curtains.

 

But Phil still remembered summers as a teacher, planning his classes, hoping that he wouldn’t have to send any students away this year. Long days spent waiting for his wife to come home, then even longer nights realising she wasn’t coming back. Weeks on end just waiting because nothing felt quite right.

 

His 107th summer was the first one that truly felt like home.

 

* * *

 

Waves crashed against the shore as he let his eyes drift shut, knowing that the long white fringes of the water would be there when he awoke. They seemed to meander aimlessly over the sand, being pulled back towards the horizon in an endless rhythm.

 

“Phil, it’s getting dark, come back inside,” her voice drifted over the waves as she ran her hand over his shoulder. Phil willed himself back to consciousness simply because he loved her.

 

He smiled up at her softly, holding her hand on his shoulder, “We should have retired earlier,” he rasped, kissing her knuckles.

 

She scoffed lightly, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, “We would have been bored after two weeks.”

 

“Not this time, though.”

 

“No,” she grinned into his hair, “not this time.”

 

Phil let her pull him out of his seat, moonlight in her eyes and stars in her smile. She kissed him, and he held her close, trying to taste the stars on her tongue.

 

“You’re cold,” she whispered, her forehead on his, “come inside, Phil.”

 

He let her lead him to bed where they lay together, grinning and happy, happy until the universe whispered, “I’m sorry.”

 

The sun had no choice but to act, flickering over their skin, tracing every inch of them. It caressed them, tasted them, shone through them. Sunlight reflected off the ocean, whose waves continued to rise and fall; fall like the tears on their cheeks.

 

Maybe the sun knew something was different today, maybe it wasn’t as reliable as it had always tried to be. Because when Melinda woke up, the sun hadn’t risen. Not for her.

 

Phil had spent 106 summers pushing against the shore, reaching for something. He’d spent 106 summers clawing his way through the sand, the sun burning his back as he cried for relief.

 

On his 107th summer, the universe finally granted him that relief, it gave him the moon, and it gave him her. It gave him the salve to his wounds, apologising the only way it could. Across his many lives, he’d been searching for, reaching for, fighting for her.

 

So he never woke up to complete his 107th summer, but let himself be pulled back towards that far-away horizon. He could stop hurting and stop reaching because he’d found her. He finally let himself be pulled across the water, carried like a saint on the back of the receding waves. She’d follow him when she was ready and he’d be there to hold her hand, to lead her to where she was supposed to be.

 

“She means everything to me,” he said to the universe.

 

The universe shamefully replied, “I know.”

 


End file.
